Articles

Articles

Whether it’s your car, your air conditioning or your own health, virtually everything you depend on in life needs a periodic assessment. What’s working, what needs repair? A company’s retirement plan is no different. And the evaluation is no less complex than the one your primary care physician might use.This month’s newsletter is designed to introduce you to the elements that make up a well-functioning retirement plan. And as you’ll discover here, the cheapest plan...

Over the last 30 years, there's been an incredible array of advancements in technology that have impacted various parts of our lives. While not all of them were amazing, many of them inherently improved our quality of life and some allowed us to catapult forward into a world of instantly accessible information on a scale never witnessed. As computer science has seeped into almost every facet of life, there's been an increase in connectivity, productivity, and efficiency.The world of inve...

For many years, plan sponsors have wrestled with the decision to offer loans to their plan participants. Some consider them to be a benefit and even promote them as a legal way to use tax free money while participating in the plan. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 87% of plan participants can take a loan against their retirement account. Of those employees with access to take a loan, about one-fifth borrow against the retirement account. Come retirement, what are the effects...

How much of your life happens online—75 percent? 90? With cell phones in our pockets and tablets next to our beds, we’re all leading electronic lives, with the expectation that when we want or need information, we’ll find it almost immediately. And retirement plan information is no different.

Every plan sponsor has a fiduciary responsibility to account for all funds in a retirement plan—including uncashed distribution checks. Do you know what your responsibilities are when a check goes uncashed or a plan participant falls off the grid? Is there a point at which you are no longer liable?